The history of packet radio in terrestrial applications and in low earth
orbit satellites for humanitarian relief and development work is
reviewed, with an emphasis on Africa. The need to decrease the
turnaround time" of time-dependent technical and management information
is described, as well as limitations to project success when such
information is not available. Sociological and regulatory concerns are
overviewed. The paper concludes that packet radio systems, in both
terrestrial and space environments, have the potential to provide the
"missing link" of reliable and inexpensive communications from isolated
regions. Integration with low-cost landline (telephone)-based systems
could dramatically increase connectivity without significant increases
in cost.

Prepared for Panel on
ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARDS AND COMPUTER NETWORKS:
AFRICA AND AFRICAN STUDIES IN THE INFORMATION AGE
34th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association
St. Louis, Missouri
November 23-26, 1991
PACKET RADIO IN EARTH AND SPACE ENVIRONMENTS
FOR RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT*

INTRODUCTION

The role of communication in development has been debated and
researched for over thirty years. One of it most prolific apologists,
Wilbur Schramm, stated in the early sixties that "communication, by its
very nature, is always at the very center of existence for any society,
developing or not. It is the basic social process [and is] about to play
a key part in the greatest social revolution of all time -- the economic
and social uplift of two-thirds of the world's people." (1) The
modernization paradigm, from which such statements derived, relied and
invested heavily on diffusionist ("trickle down") theories of mass
communications to break down traditional habits of thinking and
behaving, which were seen as responsible for Third World backwardness.
But it didn't work.

By the mid-1970's, it was clear to many social scientists that only
those individuals with higher socio-economic status were listening to
mass media messages urging adoption of new technologies and processes,
thus increasing the gap between rich and poor. The role of communication
as a manipulative product of corporate power as well as structural
barriers in society itself received more scrutiny instead of only
communications variables and the speed with which innovations were
moving through society. Schramm himself concluded at this time that
"things are not as simple as had been assumed, and the generality sought
by the old paradigm may not now be possible. Back to the old drawing
board!" (2)

The diffusionist model then underwent some radical surgery, for the
first time embracing such values as equality of distribution, popular
participation, local invention and re-invention of technology as people-
serving tools. This was the period of the "greening of development
communication." But just as the perception began to change, the new
microprocessor-based information technologies, especially communication
satellite technologies, exploded onto the scene. The seductive appeal of
these technologies together with the human shortcoming of designing
simple strategies for complicated situations seem to have smothered
lessons learned from structural analyses surrounding the older
communication technologies. Comments as the one below are sadly not
uncommon:

"We are moving toward the 21st century with the very great goal of
building a Computopia on earth, the historical monument of which will be
only several chips one inch square in a small box. But that box will
store many historical records, including the record of how four billion
world citizens overcame the energy crisis and the population explosion;
achieved the abolition of nuclear weapons and complete disarmament;
conquered illiteracy; and created a rich symbiosis of god and man
without the compulsion of power or law, but by the voluntary cooperation
of citizens to put into practice their common global aims." (3)

Our challenge today, it seems to me, is to learn from the mistakes
and unbridled optimism of the past, including the "greened" diffusionist
theories, which were never completely implemented because the
protagonists not always understood or adopted for themselves the same
technologies they were preaching to their audiences (a downside to the
"appropriate technology movement," a parallel phenomenon). Today there
is a "mother lode" of new, low-cost but skill intensive information and
communication technologies lending themselves to adoption by the same
people and organizations who promote them to others. It is against this
backdrop that the groundswell of interest in packet radio, packet radio
satellites and low-cost telephone line computer-based messaging and
networking deserves widespread attention.

EARLY HISTORY - PACKET RADIO SATELLITES (1984-1990)

As is common with many information and communication technologies
(the origin of Apple Computer comes to mind), hobbyist interest created
low-cost packet radio. Amateur radio operators, notably those connected
with the Tuscon Amateur Packet Radio Association (TAPR), adapted an
international packet communications protocol (X.25) for use over radios.
Packet radio is so called because digital information prepared on a
computer is converted to short, swift audio bursts ("packets") by a
"terminal node controller" or "packet controller," and transmitted
through a radio to another location where a similar station delivers it
error-free to the receiving computer. In this paper, packet radio is
given the most attention because of its ability to handle text and
binary files. However, reference is also made to "digital radio," a more
generic term that includes other non-packet modes such as TOR --
"teleprinting over radio" -- which is essentially upper-case only telex.

Another amateur radio special interest group, the Radio Amateur
Satellite Corporation (AMSAT), was the first organization to propose
putting packet radio into low earth orbiting (LEO) satellites. LEO
orbits are approximately 500 miles above the earth, in which satellites
traverse the earth in equatorial or polar trajectories about once every
ninety minutes. In October 1981, AMSAT, the American Radio Relay League
(ARRL) -- a noncommercial association of radio amateurs -- and the
Amateur Radio Research and Development Corporation (AMRAD), sponsored
the first "ARRL Amateur Radio Computer Networking Conference" in
Washington, DC. At this meeting, the first public mention of "PACSAT," a
proposed LEO satellite using packet radio technologies for store-and-
forward digital communications among radio hams was made.

Curiously, at exactly the same time, one of the major conclusions
of a workshop sponsored by the International Development Research Centre
(IDRC) in Ottawa on "Computer-Based Conferencing Systems for Developing
Countries" was that the IDRC support feasibility studies for both "the
development of low-cost, narrow-band ground stations for research
institutions" and "international geostationary satellites for computer-
based conferencing in developing countries." Presenters at that meeting
included S. Ramani (Bombay) and R. Miller (California) who proposed "a
new type of communication satellite needed for computer-based messaging"
in equatorial orbit for developing countries. Digital methods suggested
included radioteletype, telegraphy, and broadcast videotext. (4)

Apparently, neither meeting was known to the other. In March 1982,
Dr. Yash Pal, an eminent Indian space scientist and Secretary-General of
UNISPACE '82 (Vienna) proposed that an "orbital postman" using LEO
satellites and digital methods be studied for some of the communication
needs of the United Nations system. (5)

In early 1983, VITA, in consultation with IDRC, Dr. Pal and others,
approached AMSAT for a "design definition study" of a PACSAT mission. At
that time VITA had accumulated nearly two years of real-time audio
teleconferencing experience over an old NASA satellite, ATS-1, on the
Pacific PEACESAT network providing information on renewable energy
technologies through lessons prepared by its volunteers. VITA believed
that the PACSAT concept could represent an alternative to the transfer
of technical information to isolated regions presently served by slow or
unreliable methods (mule train mail), if at all. Even PEACESAT had its
drawbacks as an information dissemination tool, namely the difficulty in
arranging for user groups to be present during the pre-arranged
conference due to intervening factors as well as the unavailability of
hard copy records of questions and answers.

An agreement with AMSAT to jointly pursue development of a PACSAT
mission was reached and in early 1983, with modest funding from VITA,
AMSAT initiated a process which culminated in a Final Design Meeting
near Boston attended by VITA and AMSAT personnel and volunteers.
Participants at the meeting included staff from the UoSat Spacecraft
Engineering Research Unit at the University of Surrey (Guildford,
England). The Surrey team, which had earlier (1981) constructed and
arranged for a NASA launch of UoSat-1, had successfully demonstrated the
highly "sophisticated functions necessary to support store-and-forward
communications services within very small budgets." (6) Surrey offered
to integrate a "Digital Communications Experiment" (DCE) into their
UoSat-2 spacecraft if it could be readied in less than six months! VITA
hired a consultant to coordinate the technical activities of AMSAT and
VITA volunteers in three countries (UK, Canada, and the U.S.], and April
1984 UoSat-2 was successfully launched into space. (7)

Thousands of messages were exchanged on the DCE from 1984 to 1990
among a small number of radio amateurs, including a station established
at VITA headquarters. For reasons more fully discussed in a future
section, these messages could only be of a non-consequential nature (ie,
radio hams talking about their equipment, location, or the "weather")
and could not legally include development information or activities. But
the experience did vividly illustrate that low-cost messaging from LEO
satellites was technically feasible. The DCE was the first non-military
LEO digital messaging satellite in the world and, while it has fallen
into general disuse because of later satellites, continues to function
normally well beyond its five year design lifetime.

RECENT HISTORY - VITASAT PROGRAM (1990 - PRESENT)

In January 1990 the PACSAT Communication Experiment (PCE) was
launched by Arianespace as part of the UoSat-3 satellite, again prepared
by the University of Surrey. This satellite upgraded the 1984 technology
to faster speeds and more on-board memory. It also contained special
transmitters and receivers operating on non-amateur frequencies so that
VITA could begin to conduct real demonstrations and experiments within a
development context. It also supports amateur radio communication and at
this date has provided reliable communication to more than a hundred
amateurs from thirty countries.

VITA's first installation operating through the PCE on the non-
amateur frequencies was for PLAN International in Freetown, Sierra
Leone. While government interference on this frequency prevented
immediate operation, this situation has been recently rectified. The
station is now sending administrative and programmatic memoranda back to
VITA which is then forwarded to PLAN International Headquarters in Rhode
Island via electronic mail. PLAN sends its messages/files in the
reverse direction in a similar manner. The PLAN-VITA interaction marks
the first time ever that low earth orbit satellites have exchanged
development-related information on non-amateur frequencies.

VITA is installing as many as fifty PCE groundstations with
institutions having applications in health, education and
environment/energy throughout developing countries, most in Africa.
VITA develops "Memoranda of Understanding" (MOU) with potential sponsors
which outlines the responsibilities of the sponsor and VITA. One of
these is SatelLife, a Boston-based organization which has launched its
own Surrey-built system, also operating on experimental frequencies, but
which is not yet functioning as this is written. SatelLife expects to
install PCE-style groundstations in a number of East African "ESANET"
countries linking medical schools at national universities in Kenya,
Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe amd Mozambique.

At the present time, VITA, through its MOUs, intends to install and
train national African staff on additional PCE stations in Nigeria,
Tanzania, Niger, Mali, Ghana, and Guinea-Bissau.

While the PCE phase is in the midst of implementation, VITA is also
in the midst of planning for the third phase which will involve the
launch of VITASAT-A and -B, operational satellites that will accommodate
up to 500 ground stations each, operating on "permanent" (non-
experimental) frequencies. There is more on this in a later section.

RECENT HISTORY - TERRESTRIAL PACKET RADIO (1986-PRESENT)

As a spinoff of its LEO satellite activities, VITA realized that
the continued development and approaching maturity of packet controller
technology would soon make it possible to implement terrestrial projects
employing computer-to-computer communication via radio without the
satellite interface. In 1986 two VITA volunteers traveled to Ethiopia
supported by corporate and church donors to conduct a three week
demonstration of packet radio between CARE operations in Addis Ababa and
Dire Dawa, several hundred kilometers to the north. It was the first
known successful demonstration of terrestrial packet radio for
humanitarian purposes. Since then VITA has implemented a variety of
packet radio projects in the Sudan, Jamaica, Chad, and the Philippines.
Studies and demonstrations have been performed for groups in Lesotho,
Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Kenya. VITA also conducts
an annual week-long course on digital and packet radio under the
auspices of the United States Telecommunications Training Institute.

One of the features of multiple station packet networks, such as
that installed in the Philippines for the Department of Health (DOH)
under grants from the Japanese Government through the World Bank, is
that various kinds of radio frequencies -- each optimized for distance
and speed -- and even landline (telephone) modems, can be integrated
into a single system. Radio stations and telephone modems are connected
to computers operating special bulletin board software which then
communicate automatically with each other passing administrative and
health data and statistics. In this way, messages and files are
forwarded throughout the network even though any given station may not
be able to directly communicate with another given station. The DOH
project also demonstrated that this networking capability can be useful
during emergencies, and a portable site at a hospital site was hastily
established for communications during the initial exodus following the
Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

One of the fascinating technical possibilities is that terrestrial
packet radio networks may find it useful to add some additional
equipment to one of its stations (perhaps the "hub" station running the
bulletin board program) and become a node on the PCE/VITASAT network.
PLAN/Sierra Leone will be the first organization to pursue this
possibility with a three-station terrestrial network connected to the
PCE station in Freetown (the capital).

Additional networking power may be realized by linking packet radio
in terrestrial and/or space environments with ordinary dial-up telephone
links using FidoNet and Fido-compatible software ("Fido" refers both to
the network of personal computer users as well as to the original mailer
software used on the network). These systems have been popular among
experimenters for many years and basically involve PCs calling each
other up in the middle of the night when rates are low and passing
messages, files and programs. Routing has become quite sophisticated
such that it is now possible to send messages across the United States
for free throughout the Fido system and to other points worldwide as
well. There are some Fido systems available in Africa, notably Kenya,
Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Senegal. There are also gateways available
to public and commercial networks, such as BITNET, USENET and
CompuServe. Others at this meeting will be able to provide a more
complete overview of Fido technology and network topology. The main
point is that, unlike commercial networks requiring high quality
telephone circuits and main frame or mini-computers and therefore high
cost, Fido style networking is accomplished much more cheaply and
perhaps with more individual enthusiasm than commercial networking.
Highly committed Fido "Johnny Appleseeds" have goals of establishing
Fido-style systems throughout the world, notably in Africa. Fido-
style mailers can be combined with bulletin board systems (BBS),
allowing the operator to become node in a true sense--his/her bulletin
board takes messages from anybody else who happens to dial in, then the
mailer forwards these messages to the correct computer by dialing it at
a pre-determined time (when the other computer is waiting for the call).

VITA has been running both a stand-alone BBS and stand-alone Fido-
style mailer for some time, and is now completing an implementation to
integrate the two together ("VITANET"). The VITANET BBS at present is
mostly a repository of information on technical and commodity assistance
available in international disasters. The VITANET mailer currently links
VITA projects in the Philippines, Australia, Kenya, Pakistan, and
Nigeria to U.S. headquarters. Eventually, the mailer will be
automatically connected via gateway software to the VITASAT
groundstation at headquarters, thus allowing any user in the VITASAT
network to communicate with any user within the VITANET domain (vast,
because the Fido system as well as BITNET/Internet and others are
available through gateways). Mailers have caught the attention of a
number of international organizations, including the IDRC and the Sub-
Saharan Program of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS).

SOME SOCIOLOGICAL CONCERNS

"An answer to a technical problem that takes minutes to obtain in Europe
can take months to obtain in Somalia or Sudan. To give just one example,
a medical advisor in Mogadishu needed background information on
excretion of antimalarials in breast milk to help him decide on the
details of a prophylaxis programme for about half a million people. The
agency funding him had no staff in Europe who were themselves qualified
to make a thorough search for this information or who knew who to ask to
do it for them. The telephone calls necessary to set up and pay for a
search through a Western information centre would have taken weeks,
given the communication problems at that time. The solution was to get a
friend who was passing through Nairobi to pay himself for a search in
Europe, personally photocopy the papers concerned, and then to mail the
printout and copies of papers to Mogadishu. The total time needed to get
the information on this routine inquiry was about four weeks. The
programme was already underway when the material arrived. Hundreds of
highly technical decisions affecting huge numbers of people are made
each month in relief programs with a bare minimum of scientific
background data."

So writes R.S. Stephenson in the October 1986 issue of Disasters.
His is a graphic way of stating that the accuracy of information is an
important but insufficient condition for its use, especially in Africa.
In order for most technical and logistical information to be employed in
the execution of a relief operation or project, it must be timely as
well as accurate in content. Scientists, engineers, physicians and
researchers are also keenly aware of the time dimension to technical
information requirements, amply illustrated by the popularity of BITNET
and Internet activities in the U.S. and some other countries.

Information which is time-critical to project execution is time-
dependent. This means that the same information, if delivered after a
certain time, has lost much--if not all--of its value. This is
frequently due to the intrinsic value of information itself. Even more
important is the potential loss of human and material resources that can
become inputs to other projects or wasted altogether if not used when
critically needed.

From the standpoint of planners, projects are sometimes viewed as
objectives compartmentalized into specific activities, all having
discrete beginning and ending points. From the perspective of field
staff, however, it is often more realistic to consider accomplished
objectives as having successfully recognized and exploited "windows of
opportunity." When the window is "open," it is critical to have the
right information available at that time. When the window is "closed,"
(e.g., field staff have promised skeptical village leaders information
on a new treatment for cholera but have not delierved same) it may be
twice as difficult if not impossible to reactivate interest.

Most useful technical information is the result of multiple pairs
of query-response: each response provides more feedback for an ever-
refined query. This makes the reduction of turnaround time important and
suggests that communication modes that specifically address reliability
and speed, particularly from isolated areas, can be enormously
significant for a variety of rural projects or activities. Insofar as
some of the African research community is itself subject to isolation,
it is obvious that these technologies could provide not only a useful
research link with peers scattered worldwide, but also mitigate the
loneliness that many young professionals report. In numerous countries,
for example, medical doctors must complete a year of service in a rural
or isolated location before they can earn their degrees.

The above describes the "last mile" problem in which communications
almost but not quite get to the enduser who is simply beyond the reach
of normal commercial channels. The point is that commercial circuits
will probably never get to these isolated people -- at least not within
our lifetimes and not in most of Africa -- because the social overhead
is too high and return on investment too low to be justified by the weak
demand. The situation thus lends itself to technology more matched to
lower levels of demand and cost.

With all of the obvious advantages, it is sometimes discouraging
that implementation of projects and diffusion of innovative
communications technology is coming about with mixed velocities, but
generally slowly. There are many ways that technology is "transferred,"
but generally it is the last element in a complex process in which
institutions or individuals ready themselves for the technology.
Sometimes this is lightning fast or spontaneous, such as the rapid
exploitation of cocoa cultivation technology by the Ashanti people of
southern Ghana which took place without intervention of agricultural
extension agents or foreign consultants. Sometimes it is time-consuming,
such as the complicated socio-political-religious value shifts required
to implement family planning methods.

Which will it be for low-cost digital radio networking? The jury
is still out, but we might well ask ourselves the following set of
questions. You can be assured that the government is asking many of the
same questions!

1. How accessible are present communication media? How and who controls
this access?

2. How is the rural social and economic structure organized and what
control does it exert over individual or project decisions?

3. Who decides whether digital radio systems can be made available and
to whom? Are local people and/or project personnel consulted?

4. Will such systems have any measurable impact on individual or family
welfare? On regional and national development in the short, medium and
long range? Will it tend to increase employment or unemployment,
fixation of the rural population or migration to the cities, enrichment
of the already rich or better income distribution?

5. Does the adoption of the system have any implications for
modifications of local work habits, practices or even cultural norms?

6. How technically sound is the technology? What level of maintenance
and problem-solving in the event of difficulties can be handled by users
themselves and what needs to be supplied from the outside? What kind and
levels of training must exist?

7. How frequently are stations checked or monitored? Do local
telecommunications authorities impose any limits to time, duration and
destination of communications? Is there any attempt at blockage or
censorship of communication?

8. How important are local personal or peer networks in formulating the
questions or topics requiring information as well as disseminating the
results?

9. Do digital radio systems help identify local resources that users
might not have known about previously? Can identification and use of
these resources eventually replace such systems as an international
communication media for far-away information resources or are packet
radio-style communications required in perpetuity?

10. How much does the PTT think it will lose in revenues if it permits
terrestrial and/or satellite packet radio systems?

As applied to digital radio, the problem with the "Johnny
Appleseed" approach to the dissemination of low-cost networking
technology is that these kinds of questions don't usually get asked
during project planning and implementation. Thus the issues may not be
thought through, and therefore the entire effort is not taken seriously
by officials who must sign off on everything. While such has been true
as well for landline networking in the past, that situation does seem to
be gradually changing in at least some African countries. But the
cautions remain. Outside of South Africa, almost 100% of the landline
networkers are not native-born Africans, the situation being somewhat
better for VITA-assisted African digital radio projects. This has
implications for how networking technologies get disseminated
("transferred"). Western values emphasize information-sharing, while
sharing is anathema to many African societies (and other cultures around
the world) to whom information is power. Information is to be carefully
guarded, because sharing it will only give someone else an advantage.
Thus, in an African context, it would be more natural to see fewer
bulletin boards and more peer-to-peer links.

SOME REGULATORY CONCERNS

In 1986 it took the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission of
Ethiopia, a government agency, more than a year to acquire temporary
authorization for a three-week demonstration of packet radio in a CARE
food program. After its success (the first of its kind ever), the
government quashed all further experimentation and a permanent network
was never implemented. Similar, though less dramatic, experiences have
been logged in other African and Asian countries.

One international agency, while implementing a packet network in an
African country, decided not to request authorization for its proposed
packet radio system, but rather strategized a "fait accompli" situation
under the guise of an existing voice radio license. When the system was
ready for inauguration, all the proper individuals were invited to a
generous reception and any objection quietly buried. One noteworthy
Asian country has a five-tiered licensing process, which could take
years to complete if followed to the letter. Time and time again, the
difficulties and delays in licensing or obtaining temporary
authorizations stymie packet radio projects in terrestrial and satellite
applications alike. Every country and situation is different.

This situation has not gone unnoticed by some of the international
organizations concerned with the technology. The IDRC and VITA have long
hoped to hold an international workshop on digital radio applications
which would include direct participation by African PTT and
telecommunications authorities in an attempt to educate and promote
more responsive policies. The Electronic Networking Component of the
Sub-Saharan Africa Program of the AAAS also plans to look more generally
at regulatory and tariff issues affecting the diffusion of information
technology in Africa. There may some understandable reasons for
xenophobic, seemingly short-sighted policies. Persistent rumors mention
RENAMO in Mozambique using packet radio technology, likewise the
Eritreans in Ethiopia, Marxist factions in the Philippines, contras in
Nicaragua. Anti-drug packet radio networks operated by the U.S.
government function throughout Latin America. VITA was once approached
by a sincere sounding individual to explore creation of a clandestine
packet radio network operating from Tibet (no further exploration
occurred).

While acknowledging that some legitimate security concerns exist,
VITA generally relies on the reputation of the sponsor to mitigate
doubts and anxieties of the host government. One African country has
demanded that special security software be implemented before
authorization to operate a PCE station is provided. The software will
allow telecommunications officials to monitor transactions with the
satellite by arriving unannounced and, using a secret software key,
unlock log files which cannot be operator altered.

One major event early in 1992 should improve the regulatory climate
of packet radio LEO satellites. The World Administrative Radio
Conference (WARC) will be held in Spain and for the first time, partly
through VITA's efforts, LEO satellites are on the agenda. WARCs allocate
frequency spectrum internationally, and VITA's hope is that recognition
of the value of a non-profit humanitarian LEO service and corresponding
frequency allocations will occur at WARC '92. Without a favorable
outcome at the WARC, VITASAT and and other satellite services like it
will have to depend on experimental frequency authorizations on a
country-by-country basis -- an unstable and less desireable situation.
Yet the effort to influence the U.S. position and win international
votes at the WARC as well as pursue national authorizations through the
Federal Communications Commission has thus far cost in excess of
$250,000, not a small amount for a grant-dependent PVO.

The situation would be considerably simpler if international
amateur radio regulations allowed humanitarian-based communications,
which are generally prohibited except in emergencies. Modified amateur
radio hardware is frequently used in both terrestrial and space packet
radio applications and is usually 10-30% cheaper than its commercial
counterparts. Even the interpretation of what constitutes an "emergency"
message varies widely. In the United States there is a strong tradition
of using amateur radio in the public service, while this is not
generally true in Europe. Since many African countries derive their
administrative apparatus and attitudes from European colonialism it is
not surprising that similar restrictions may apply to amateur radio and
amateur radio-derived technologies in those countries.

CONCLUSION

It is still too early to say that LEO store-and-forward satellites
are "here to stay" for relief and development applications in Africa. As
1991 draws to a close, there is undeniable widespread interest, as there
is in terrestrial packet radio applications and low-cost landline
networking. The potential contributions that these technologies can make
are immense, however, and collectively have fired the imaginations of
many people who see one or more of these as possible solutions to the
age-old problem of communicating from isolated regions.

It is likely that none of these technologies alone will have the
kind of impact required to truly make a difference. As pointed out
earlier in this paper, technologies alone rarely play that role. They
interact with values, norms and institutions to produce changes in
society.

But personal, decentralized networks integrating all three
technologies for problem-solving purposes cut across society. They can
empower people to make changes in their lives, gain new knowledge
through links with others, and ameliorate duplication of effort. We
should remind ourselves that communication technologies are, after all,
mere extensions of our abilities (and frailities) at manipulating and
relaying the data and information we create. The use of those data and
information in the creation of knowledge depends on people, as
individuals, and not on the technologies themselves.

If we can keep the focus on individuals, then it may turn out that
Wilbur Schramm's vision of communication as the "core social process"
helping to alleviate poverty may turn out to have been right after all.

*(The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect those of VITA or of any other organization cited.)

2. Wilbur Schramm, "End of an Old Paradigm?" in Schramm, Wilbur and
Lerner, Daniel, eds. Communication and Change - The Last Ten Years - and
the Next (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1976), p. 47.

4. David Balson et al, Computer-Based Conferencing Systems for
Developing Countries. Report of a workshop held in Ottawa, Canada, 26-30
October 1961. Organized by the International Development Research Centre
in cooperation with the International Federation for Information
Processing.

5. Yash Pal, "A Proposal for an 'Orbital Postman' to Meet Some of the
Communication Needs of the United Nations System" at the International
Round Table on Alternative Space Futures and the Human Condition, New
York, 8-10 March 1982.